State of Affairs

In recent times, Chevron Nigeria Ltd donated some laboratory equipment to the department and Mirai Denchi Nigeria Ltd, a Lagos-based subsidiary of Mirai Denchi Inc., Japan, together with their Japanese associate companies, sponsored the Department’s 10kW solar energy initiative, which is an ongoing project. This Project was formally commissioned by Prof. Nebo, the then Minister of Power, in June, 2014. Recent major projects of interest that are on-going in the department include the designing of new types of electric motors, design of an electric vehicle, wind energy and solar-related projects. In addition, in view of the recent trend in power solutions, the department has recently established a new laboratory called the Industrial Electronics, Power Devices and New Energy Systems Laboratory. However, there is urgent need to upgrade all the laboratories in the department, especially, the high voltage lab, the machines lab, the power systems lab, the control and instrumentation lab and the communications lab.

The department has recently (in 2014 and this year) participated in the Enugu International Trade Fair. This is in an effort to sell to the general public some of the numerous projects that are relevant to the power solutions required in the present power crises in Nigeria. One set of solution that has reached a commercial level of development include inverters, UPS and transform-less stabilizers. The department has recently registered the trademark, LION ELECTRIC, in preparation of the commercialization of products developed and produced in our departmental workshop.

As at present, the department has five full Professors, namely, Prof. E.C.Ejiogu (Head of Department since August 2013), Prof. M.U Agu,(coordinator of the Industrial Electronics, Power Semi-conductor Devices and New Energy Systems Research Group), Prof. T.C. Madueme (coordinator, Power Systems and High Voltage Engineering Research Group, and immediate past Dean of the faculty of Engineering ), Prof. E.S. Obe (coordinator of the Electromechanical Devices and Drives System Group, and Director of Computer and Communications Centre of UNN, and Prof. L.U.Anih ( Coordinator, SIWES, UNN). It is interesting to note that all the professors are alumni of the department, either or the undergraduate or post-graduate level. In addition we have one Visiting Professor from the UK , Prof. A.O. Ekwue, also an alumnus of the department, one Associate Professor (Dr. N.M.Nwohu) on sabbatical. There are four Senior Lecturers, three Lecturer I, one Lecturer II (on oversea training for PhD), and three graduate assistants, two of whom are on overseas training for their PhD, while one is currently finishing his M. Eng degree in the department. The 11 technical staff and 4 administrative staff ably compliment the academic and research activities in the department.The current student population in the department is 440 students.

In the last COREN professional accreditation exercise in January 2013, under the headship of the immediate past head of department, Engr. Dr. B.O.Anyaka, the department passed in flying colours, with the highest points of 76.5 among the departments in the faculty. However, in the NUC accreditation exercise that took place in December 2014, the department could only get interim accreditation, mainly on account of the large student-academic staff ratio. The department will therefore face another NUC accreditation exercise in the 2016/2017 academic year. Hence, there is urgent need to strengthen the department in all areas so that we obtain full NUC accreditation.

In full recognition of the universal criteria for appraising the quality of teaching and research in the Electrical Engineering discipline, the Department will continue to upgrade and strengthen its teaching and research facilities and practices to be of world standard. The Department’s research and teaching activities will, therefore, always be geared towards producing highly skilled, knowledgeable and disciplined human capital and efficient methods/machines for solving real life societal problems. Our basic philosophy still remains that of the founding fathers:

To seek truth

To teach truth

To preserve truth